Counties with fewer supes can afford to pay them more / Subtract a few supes before adding to pay

Ken Garcia

Published 4:00 am, Friday, August 9, 2002

The decision by San Francisco supervisors to consider letting the city go into the pot business makes me question if some of our officials aren't already in it.

Lost amid the stream of taxpayer-whipping measures that our benevolent leaders decided to put on the November ballot recently was their mind-blowing proposal to try to grant themselves a nice, hefty raise.

And the best part of that ruse is that the supervisors say it's not about the money. It's about respect.

Any wonder how our city has gone to pot?

"We're going to have to convince the public that we're worth it," said Board of Supervisors President Tom Ammiano, who wisely noted that that it's going to be a very tough sell.

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At a time when the stock market is taking a historic dive, the economic outlook is increasingly gloomy, and the city is predicting a sizable budget deficit over the next two years, the supervisors have decided that they need a sizable salary upgrade. And they're asking voters this November to give up their right to set the supervisor's salaries and turn it over to a commission of political appointees.

That proposal, pushed by Supervisor Matt Gonzalez, first surfaced about three months after our rookie legislators took office -- although somehow it never surfaced during their campaigns. And there is a certain beauty in the salary scheme in that there is no number attached to it -- the charter amendment would let the Civil Service Commission set the pay -- based on a formula that puts them closer to what supervisors make in other counties in California.

There's only one problem with this formula. There are no other counties like San Francisco and -- without doubt -- no other set of supervisors similar to our merry pranksters.

Indeed, novice Supervisor Chris Daly once gushed that he never made more than $37,000 a year, long before proving that even at that rate he is vastly overpaid.

Yet even Daly's headline-grabbing antics shouldn't take away from the fact that our full-time leaders deserve a full-time salary. And I would agree with the argument that a higher salary might attract some more qualified candidates.

But the supervisors have to do some subtraction before their salary increase can be justified, for the simple reason that their board is more than twice the size of any comparable legislative body in Calfornia. They seem happy to overlook this fact, just like they don't seem to mind discussing city layoffs and union wage freezes at the same time they're attempting to pad their own pay.

"My concern over this has to do with the timing of it when we're talking about layoffs and budget cuts," said Gavin Newsom, who was joined by Leland Yee as the only dissenters to the ballot measure. "This is a life-consuming job, but we didn't get into public life to make a living."

San Francisco is the only city/county in the state that has but one legislative body. Los Angeles has a separate city council and board of supervisors. Los Angeles councilmembers make nearly $140,000 per year, but they all represent more than 1 million people. Los Angeles County supervisors, who wield more power than most monarchs and lord over land masses that make San Francisco look like an ant farm, make pay equal to their council brethren.

Alameda County supervisors earn $109,000 per year; Santa Clara County's board members make $106,000. Each board has five members, as do all the other counties in the state.

But at the cannabis club at City Hall, we have 11 members, each of whom is elected by a few thousand voters in tiny, gerrymandered districts. Gonzalez's measure suggests that because San Francisco is a city and county, the supervisors are pulling double duty. But reality suggests that there is no distinction between the county and city of San Francisco, except that the sheriff's department is in charge of operating the county jails that the city police occasionally fill with lawbreakers.

Should San Francisco have a city council and a board of supervisors? Only if you're a firm believer in the chaos theory of government. But should the board be reduced to five or seven members, putting them in line with the other jurisdictions with which they want to be compensated? A lot sooner than the gang of 11 gets a pay raise.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin argued rather passionately that the ballot measure giving board members a sizable, if undetermined salary hike would bring respect to a body that has been an institutional "whipping boy." He must have meant self-respect because the board's reputation has been earned through years of public comedy and painful public policy. Our present board has blithely ignored the wishes of the voters in numerous cases, trying to pass laws to overturn voter mandates from the previous election.

But the supervisors have not proved that in a county as small as San Francisco we need 11 highly paid officials to do work that other, sprawling metropolises can do with five.

At the very least, it would probably reduce the number of ballot measures aimed at taxpayers' wallets and thin from the ranks those who cannot tell the difference between activism and lawmaking.

Only then should we be adding zeros to their paychecks -- instead of placing more zeros on the board.

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